Published Release Notes

Improved experience when building an IVA and Email Bot in App Studio

Build your Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant™ (IVA) and Pega Email Bot™ while working only in App Studio. This approach makes the design process easier and more intuitive, and saves you time. You can now modify the advanced text analyzer configuration while working in App Studio. In addition, if you have access to Dev Studio, you can edit the text analyzer rule from App Studio for your chatbot or email bot by clicking a link to open the settings in Dev Studio.

For more information, see Adding a text analyzer for an email bot and Adding a text analyzer for an IVA.

View mini user profiles in Pulse

You can now view mini profiles of users who post messages and users who are referenced in Pulse, by clicking the name of the user. A mini profile contains the user's job title, reporting manager, organization, and links to call and send email to the user. By seeing a brief overview of a user profile, you can access important information about users and contact them more quickly.

For more information about Pulse, see:

• App Studio – Communicating with users by using Pulse
• Dev Studio – Communicating with users by using Pulse

Data encryption support for system data

You can now control system-level data security by using data encryption in Pega Platform™. Encryption of system-level data improves the overall security of your system.

For more information, see Configuring the platform cipher and Configuring a keystore for a master key from a custom source.

Upgrading to the secure threading mechanism for email bots

In Pega Platform™ version 8.6, Pega Email Bot™ includes a more secure threading mechanism to help track emails from customers and other stakeholders in separate threads for an email triage case.

Upgrade impact

If you upgrade from Pega Platform version 8.5 or earlier, in which you configured an Email channel, perform the following steps to ensure that your system uses the new secure threading mechanism:

• Update the service email rule that the system uses to send an email reply as the initial acknowledgment.
• Update the email reply template in the data transform rule that the system uses when a customer service representative (CSR) sends the reply.

For more information about creating an initial acknowledgment email and email reply template, see Creating outbound email templates. For more information about the secure threading mechanism, see Use a secure threading mechanism in emails.

What steps are required to update the application to be compatible with this change?

For the initial acknowledgment email used by your email bot, update the service method for your email listener rule. On the Response tab for this service email rule, expand the Message contents section. In the Message data section, you specify the rule that defines the structure of the content of the email body. In Pega Platform version 8.6, you use for this purpose the pyEmailAcknowledgement correspondence rule that takes into account the selected built-in template. This template includes the security code tag that the system uses for the secure threading mechanism. If your application uses a different rule in the Message data section, update this definition to match one of the built-in correspondence template rules, for example, EmailAckTemplate_Clear.

The pySetEmailBotReplyTemplate data transform rule sets the name of the email correspondence rule that the system uses as the email reply template. If you do not want to use the default approach using the Classic, Cobalt, or Clear outbound email template themes, override this data transform rule to set the email correspondence rule name for the Param.ReplyTemplate target in the Source column field.

For more information about how to update the service email rule and the data transform rule to ensure that your system uses the secure threading mechanism, see Upgrading to the threading mechanism available in the 8.6 version.

Improved performance of decision strategies

Strategy rule performance has been improved through the implementation of a new engine. You can perform single and batch test runs to analyze strategy performance, locate and prevent potential issues, and optimize strategy components. Test runs now support data sets and data flows with multiple key properties. The redesigned Test run panel improves the display of information and highlights the most immediately relevant details.

For more information, see Configuring a single case runs and Configuring a batch case runs.

Improved performance in Process Modeler

Process Modeler has been enhanced to be faster, more responsive, and easier to use. Opening a canvas is 10 to 35 times faster on flows with 200 shapes.

Enhancements include:

• Smart guides to help you align shapes
• New cursors that indicate what you can and cannot do
• A WYSIWYG display when you move shapes
• Real-time preview when you swap swimlanes
• A visible grid when grid snapping is on
• Actual shapes are dragged instead of a silhouette of the shape
• Shapes are highlighted in real time when you draw over a selection of many shapes
• Right-click menu for controlling shape distribution and alignment
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Combined panning and zooming
• Swimlanes pick up shapes when you move a swimlane over them

Enhanced refresh token strategy

You now have more precise control over your refresh token expiration strategy. When a refresh token is enabled, you can choose to set its initial expiration based on the value provided by the IDP. The refresh token expiry can be derived from IDP’s session timeout when SSO is used with external IDP for user authentication in the authorization code grant flow. You can also specify a separate refresh token expiration strategy based on your use-case. 

These can be configured in the OAuth2 Client registration rule form.

For more information, see Enhanced refresh token strategy.

Relevant records management shows more information

Relevant records for a class now include more information that you can use to manage the records for your application development. As a result of these enhancements, you can:

• View inherited and inactive relevant records for the specified class.
• Mark specific records as active or inactive for the specified class.
• Mark specific records as relevant on the rule form.

You can use these new details to filter the list of relevant records for a class on the Relevant Records tab of the selected class. For more information, see Managing relevant records and Marking records as relevant records.